“Diana Panty, Gabru kaccha,” singer Mika’s recent crass remark on Diana Penty that spilled further into women’s body shaming online left everybody, and not just Diana, embarrassed and red-faced. At the latest promotional outing in Delhi, the star cast of Happy Bhag Jayegi, slammed online shaming saying ‘it’s not a good idea to mock women on the Internet’. “I don’t think it’s healthy at all and it is definitely not cool. I don’t get that idea of beauty that people have… it needs to be changed and stopped,” said Diana, finally breaking her silence.

Her co-star, Abhay Deol, jumped in, “It’s a cowardly thing to do.”

Abhay Deol and Diana Penty

The two lead actors of Happy Bhag Jayegi, (others being Ali Fazal and Jimmy Shergil), are making a sort of comeback to the screen. While Diana disappeared after Cocktail, Abhay moved back to his exile in California after his last dud venture One By Two. “I didn’t disappear intentionally. I was just waiting for the right script. Meanwhile, I was busy travelling,” said Diana, who is still learning to get friendly with media. For Abhay, there’s ‘no fear of being left out.’ “We work to prove it to ourselves and not others,” he asserted.

Abhay has been known for middle-of-the-road cinema where he tries to strike a balance between commercial elements and original content. Ever since his debut (Dev D) and occasional disappearances from the industry, a new breed of actors like Kalki Koechlin, Nawazudin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte have come up to take baton forward. But the Oye Luck! Lucky Oye! actor doesn’t find much change in the industry. “Bollywood has not changed. There are individual actors who are trying to hold their fort. But formula movies still dominate. If that wasn’t the rule, we would have got a variety of actors doing more cinema that defines them and not competing for the same image which even younger lot is striving for. There’s no art cinema, just a group of actors trying their kind of things out there.

Abhay Deol

When asked if he would like to wear director’s hat? “I will be honest. I was never interested in direction. Maybe lately I have been thinking about it but I need to gain more confidence to become a director,” he said.